Life of Kit Carson, the Great Western Hunter and Guide. Charles Burdett
sometimes having plenty without much toil; so that they can say to-day, "No deer, no acorn; white man come! poor Indian hungry," as the happiest style of begging.
A brief description of the Tlamath or Digger Indians, and their mode of living, may not now be out of place, and having been visited by Carson in his earlier years, may not be uninteresting. We quote from the language of one who has paid a recent visit to the tribe:
"There were a dozen wigwams for the nearly hundred that composed the tribe, one of which was much larger than the rest, and in the centre of the group, the temple, or "medicine lodge." As we entered, the bones of game consumed, and other offal lay about; and to our inquiry why they did not clear away and be more tidy, only a grunt was returned. The men had gone fishing, said the Indian woman we addressed, so we saw but two or three; but in one wigwam which we entered there were fourteen with ourselves—the rest, besides the boy who went before to announce us, were women and children.
"We ascended a mound of earth, as it seemed, about six feet high, and through a circular hole, perhaps two feet and a half in diameter, descended a perpendicular ladder about ten feet. This opening, through which we entered, performed the double office of door and window to the space below, which was circular, about fourteen feet across, with arrangements for sleeping, like berths in a steamboat, one over another, on two sides, suspended by tying with bark a rough stick to upright posts, which served to hold the sticks that sustained the roof. The whole was substantially built, the covering being the earth which was taken from the spot beneath, heaped upon a layer of rushes, the floor of the wigwam being four feet below the surface of the ground. On the two sides of the wigwam not occupied by the berths, were barrels filled with fish—dried salmon, seeds, acorns, and roots.
"On hooks from the rush lined ceiling hung bags and baskets, containing such luxuries as dried grasshoppers and berries. About the berths hung deer skins and some skins of other game, seemingly prepared for wear. There was no appearance of other dress, yet in the berths sat three women, braiding strips of deer skin, and attaching the braids to a string, in the form of long fringe. Each of the women wore an apron of this kind about the waist, and only the dress of nature beside. The children were dressed 'in puris naturalibus.'
"After stopping ten minutes, we were glad to ascend to the open air, for a sickness came over us from which we did not recover for several hours. How human beings live in such an atmosphere we cannot tell, but this is the way they habitate.
"When the grasshoppers were abundant, for this insect is one of the luxuries of the Diggers, they scoured the valley, gathering them in immense quantities. This is done by first digging holes or pits in the ground at the spot chosen. Then the whole party of Indians, each with the leafy branch of a tree, form a circle about it and drive in the grasshoppers till they heap them upon each other in the pits: water is then poured in to drown them. Their booty gathered, they proceed to another place and perform the same operation. These insects are prepared for food by kindling a fire in one of these pits, and when it is heated, filling it with them and covering it with a heated stone, where they are left to bake. They are now ready for use at any time, and eaten with gusto, or they are powdered, and mixed with the acorn meal in a kind of bread, which is baked in the ashes."
To return to the camp of trappers, and witness one day's duties, may be gratifying to the reader. With early dawn the traps are visited, and the beaver secured. The traps are re-adjusted, and the game brought into camp—or left to be skinned where it is if the camp is far away. Meantime breakfast has been prepared by one of the party; others have looked after the animals, relieving the watch which is still kept up lest a stampede occur while all are sleeping. Carson could not be cook for the party constantly, but takes his turn with the rest, and by the nice browning of his steak, and the delicacy of his acorn coffee, and the addition to their meal of roasted kamas root, he proves the value of the apprenticeship of his earlier years. He has a dish of berries, too, and surprises the party with this tempting dessert, as well as with the information that in his rambles the day before he had dined with an old Californian, with his wife and daughters, and had the promise from them of a cow, if he would call for it on the morrow.
Breakfast over, and the remains put by for lunch at noon, Carson mounts his pony, and riding a few miles down the bank swims the river, and dashing out among the hills with a high round mountain peak in view, still miles away, is lost among the oak groves for a score of miles, and at length emerges on Susan bay, and doffs his hat and makes his bow to the young Señorita who greets him at the door with a smile of welcome. The sun is low; dinner waits—hot bread, and butter, and cheese, and coffee with sugar, are added to the venison and beef, and Irish and sweet potatoes. Amid the civilities and pleasant chat, the hour passes happily, and Carson proposes returning to his party.
The ladies will not allow him to depart. Will he not accept the hospitality of their mansion for a single night? They do not urge after one refusal, because his every feature indicates the decision of his character. He must go. His horse is brought—a young and beautiful animal—and the cow, this object of his second journey thither, given him in charge as he mounts, with a rope attached to her horns, by which to lead her. The full moon is rising, on which he had calculated, as he told his hostesses, and with words of pleasant compliment, with which the Spanish language so much more than ours abounds, and a Buenos noches, señor, from his entertainers, and Buenos noches, señoritas, in return, he slowly winds his silent way on and on through the oak groves and the wild oats covering the hill-sides, hearing only the song of the owl and the whippoorwill, the music of the insects, and the whispering leaves, but with ear ever open to detect the stealthy tread of the monster of the wood and hills—the grizzly bear. Off on the distant hill he sees one, with a cub following her; but game is plenty, and deer is good enough food for her. On, on he goes at slow pace, for he has a delicate charge, and already is she restive from very weariness, though his pace is slow.
Half his journey is completed as the gray of dawn and the twinkle of the star of morning relieves the tedium and anxiety of his loneliness. He has made the circuit of the bay. The river is before him as he descends the hill which he has ascended for observation. Morning broadens. The flowers glow with variegated beauty as he tramples them, and in some patches the odor of the crushed dewy beauties fills the air to satiety.
A few miles more of travel and he crosses the river, and is again in the river-bottom where the party have taken the beaver. He stops at an Indian village, and dines from the liberal haunch and the acorn bread the chief presents, and with good feelings displayed on either side, takes in his arms a young papoose, the digger's picaninny, and salutes it with a kiss. Kit leaves there a trifling, but to them, valuable memorial of his visit, mounts his sorrel which is restive under the slow gait to which he has restrained him, takes the rope again which secures his treasure, the cow, and plods towards home at evening. The camp fire smokes in the distance, while the few horses that remain are staked about, and the sentinel paces up and down to keep off the drowsiness induced by fatigue and a hearty meat supper. The eastern and the western horizon are lighted with pale silver by the departing god of day, and the approaching goddess of the night, and the still river divides the plain, bounded only by the horizon, except he look behind him. Such is the scene as, approaching, the sentinel raises his gun and gives the challenge to halt. But the rest of the camp are not yet sleeping, and a dozen voices shout in the still evening a glad welcome to Carson, for whom they were not concerned, for they well knew there was not one of the party so well able to take care of himself as he.
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